Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Also visit my Photography by DonnaKay blog @ http://blog.photographybydonnakay.com ... a little more about my life as a photographer...

The following is something my future daughter-in-law sent to my son. They are engaged to be married in October of 2012. My son has been in the US Navy for 5+ years now, and is currently stationed 8-10 hours away from his fiancee, and 11-12 hours from his home here in NC. There aren't words to express how much this Mom's heart aches from missing him -- but I raised him to be independent, to do his best, and to give back. And I could not be prouder of the man he has grown up to be. I served as a military wife for 4 years, and I can tell you there is a lot of sacrifice expected as a military spouse. The words "I'm being deployed and will be gone for x-months" is NEVER easy to hear - but they come with the territory. But I can also attest that there is no way to explain the extreme patriotism that I felt, and some of that I didn't even realize fully until we were away from the military. As hard as it was for me to adjust to, it was even harder to adjust to being away from it. Please read these words, and then I ask you to consider whether you could settle for this kind of promise. But that is what is required of our soldiers. And I beg you to find a new level of respect for what they do - and the sacrifice that is required of not only them, but of their families.

A Military Man's Promise... I cannot promise you every night of my life. I cannot promise to be beside you for every difficult moment, every trial, and every hardship. In truth, I can promise you that I will not be with you for most. I will leave you at inconvenient times. Any special date to us may be tainted with the anniversary of the death of one of my friends. I will ask you to take over whatever life we have built together for months and years at a time. And will then crash back into that life that you have used your sweat, your tears and your heartache to keep together, and try to take it back as I knew it before. I will shut you out at times because it will be the best way for me to hold it together at that moment. I will lie to you. I will tell you I don't know things when I do. I will not always tell you where I am going, when I will be back, or who I am with. I may not call you for weeks and months and you will not be able to call me. You will ask questions that I won't answer. You will know answers to questions that you will hope you never need. I will share things with my brothers that you will never understand. They will know things about me that you never will. They will be a support to me in some things that you cannot be. I will miss birthdays. I will miss anniversaries. I may need time to process things that seem natural to everyone else. It will seem that someone - or something - will always take precedence over you. You may lose me long before you ever thought possible. I will uproot you and ask you to re-establish our family anywhere in the world, in any season, at any time -over and over again. Sand and mud will be tracked through your halls from the boots I am too tired to take off. I will leave you when you beg me not to. I will stand at attention while you cry beside me. I will not turn my head and I will walk away. I will knowingly break your heart. And I will do it again - and again. I cannot promise you all of me. I cannot promise you much of anything. But if you will have me, I can promise that as I march away from you, it is not without sharing your heartache. I promise you that every time I break your heart I will be breaking mine. Every time that I cannot answer you I will be protecting you. Whenever you want to call and you have no number to dial, I will be wanting to do the same. I will protect everything that we have created together with every fiber of my being while you do the same back at home. I will honor you in everything -every moment that we are apart and every moment that I am with you. I will fight harder and push further knowing that I do so for you. And I will carry you with me in everything, until my sandy boots once again sit just inside our door...A military relationship/marriage is one of the strongest and hardest I know!! and this about sums it up!

I am so proud, excited and honored to be doing their engagement photo session this next weekend, as they are traveling to NC just for me to do this for them! So stay tuned for those beautiful pictures... and feel free to leave them a message as a comment at the end of this blog. I'll make sure they get them!